This Thursday, JCFO is giving a design update on the Waterfront. With the Viaduct closing for a week, it seems like an appropriate time to think about a post-viaduct waterfront.
There’s an idea going around (read the comments here) that a logical extension of Link in Seattle would be to just make a turn West at Brooklyn Station, and serve Wallingford, Phinney or Fremont, and Ballard. This is a great idea, and a way of serving some high-demand routes with our new rail infrastructure. However, there are some significant barriers to implementing this plan: we’re out of planned train capacity in the downtown tunnel, it’s claimed Northgate needs all of this capacity, branching a major trunk is rarely a good idea, and there would be two deep (expensive) stations. Conventional wisdom is to save our pennies and someday serve Ballard with its own light rail line coming up from downtown. There are benefits and disbenefits to both strategies, and I don’t plan on settling the debate here.
But consider for a moment running a gondola spur line. We can have high capacity, very high frequency transit without giving up train capacity in the downtown tunnel. We provide future connectivity between the current and future light rail lines, if one is built. We give at least 18,500 riders (the 44, 15, 18) a faster way around each day. And we do it all for much less money than a light rail line.
Let’s run the numbers for converting this spur to a gondola line:
At 3.2 miles, if we use a single cable gondola (14mph) that’s about a 15 minute journey. That’s probably too slow. So let’s pull out the big guns and go with a 3S system (two support cables, one drive cable, 24mph). Now we’re looking at 8 minutes, plus time at stops, so about 10 minutes end to end. That’s more like it.
Looking at capacity, a 3S system will have plenty. We can get between 4,000 and 6,000 passengers per hour per direction (and possibly more). That’s the equivallent to between 40 and 60 buses in each direction each hour.
…and it’s far too late anyway. But what if instead of light rail over I-90, we just connected downtown Bellevue and downtown Seattle via gondola?
The two are just 6 miles apart. Yes, that’s huge for gondola distances. And over some deep water. But I feel like crunching some numbers, so humor me.
Speed
We’d definately want to use 3S technology – that’s two support cables and one drive cable. This would allow us to go 24 mph. So that would be a 15 minute journey. Hey, that’s much faster than Link’s 20 minute journey! Of course, South Bellevue station and Mercer Island would increase in travel time, but everything north of Bellevue won’t be affected much (transfer will surely take less than 5 minutes, when a car leaves every 30 seconds).
Capacity
So a gondola would win in terms of speed. What about capacity? East Link will have a maximum of 4-car trains every 8 minutes going to the east side. If each car can hold 200 people, that’s 6,000 people per hour per direction. But wait, Whistler’s 3S system can carry 4,100 people per hour per direction. And with larger stations we could add more cars, bringing that number up.
Cost
This is the big unknown. Gondola systems are cheap compared to light rail systems, but keep in mind we’re really only comparing the section of light rail crossing I-90 (though this is probably an expensive stretch of rail). We would need to keep the rest of the planned system, even adding a storage and maintenance area, because East Link will serve much more than Bellevue. Also, we’d be crossing a deep lake. I have no idea how much towers going down 200′ to the floor of Lake Washington would cost, but I’m quite sure it wouldn’t be cheap (there’s a reason we use floating bridges around here). We could have high towers on either side and skip mid-lake towers (the lake is only 2 miles across), but that could be expensive too.
Thoughts
Well, I’m a day late and a dollar short on this one. Our entire region’s already agreed on a plan, and it’s likely a better plan than mine. Plus leaving the east side light rail disconnected from the west side light rail system kills all kinds of efficiencies. Then again, maybe I’m not thinking big enough. Why not branch out from Bellevue with gondolas?
Eric McCaughrin from the East Bay Bicycle Coalition puts together a list of ways that antiquated Federal Railroad Administration rules stack the deck against passenger rail in the US. US trains need to be almost absurdly heavy to withstand potential freight crashes. This results in slower, more expensive, harder-to-maintain rolling stock. Trains must also blow their horns loudly at every intersection, raising the ire of nearby residents.
Easing these rules would seem to be something that the FRA could do without congressional approval. I know that some rules, like the horn rule, were actually legislated by Congress, but is there room for interpretation on this or other rules?
I assume the reason that these rules haven’t been changed is that the freight companies and their allies in congress are petrified of the potential lawsuits from collisions. Anyone have any more insights?
FYI: There’s a mini-ferry running between South Lake Union and the University District (near Agua Verde). The trip is $5 and takes 20 to 25 minutes. They leave UW on the hour and SLU on the half hour, every day from 8am to 6:30pm, with an extra three hours on Fridays and Saturdays. The boat carries 14 passengers and two bikes.
They’ll run the ferry through October (weather permitting), and will start back up next year in May. They’re also planning on connecting SLU to Fremont.
(via The Sun Break)
Mark Hinshaw has an interesting piece in Crosscut with the counterintuitive title, “Seattle is killing retail by requiring too much of it.” I encourage you to read the whole thing. I find myself nodding in agreement with his diagnosis of the problem: Seattle over-incentivizes street-level retail, and the result is too many storefronts and not enough residents to support them. I also buy his solution: focus retail on a few commercial thoroughfares, and allow the side streets to remain residential. He cites New York as an example:
For decades Manhattan has had a system in which the north-south Avenues serve as the streets of commerce. Larger, taller buildings tend to flank those thoroughfares. By contrast the east-west side streets are more residential with considerably less commercial activity. There may be businesses on the ground floor (or a half-basement). Exceptions to this rule are major crosstown streets such as 8th and 14th in the Village or 42nd and 57th further uptown.
You can actually feel the difference between the major streets and the side streets in a visceral sense. The side streets are quieter. Walk off the big avenue 50 feet and the noise level drops significantly. But even other difference are evident. People walk more slowly. People linger in knots. Kids play on stoops. Street trees abound. Apparently even in New York with its off-the-charts density, people appreciate the virtues of small town living and respite spaces.
One problem with using Manhattan is that the grid is exactly the opposite of, say Belltown’s: New York’s wide, major avenues form the short sides of the grid’s rectangles, whereas in Seattle they form the long sides. What this means in practice is that there isn’t really much room for a residential row on, say, Lenora St., because it’s so short between Avenues. Go 50 feet off of 3rd avenue, and you’re… halfway to 4th Avenue.
Secondly, as some in the comments section have noted, Seattle does have several “high streets,” such as NE 45th, California Ave SW, 15th Ave E, Greenwood and Phinney Aves, etc. The problem with many of these high streets is that they are often (a) limited to single- or double-story buildings and (b) located in neighborhoods that turn immediately into single-family detached housing as soon as you step off the high street. This limits the potential pedestrian-commercial impact. Exceptions include Broadway in Capitol Hill, University Ave, NW Market St. in Ballard, among others.
I’m not really sure why Hinshaw makes reforms to Pioneer Square the centerpiece of his argument, though. Clearly he has a soft spot for the neighborhood, but it seems to me that Pioneer Square isn’t really a candidate for the “high street” treatment. Instead, I’d argue for more density and up-zonings, with the goal of creating a critical mass of residents who can have a seat at the table alongside the sports teams, the night clubs, and the preservationists.
I happen to own a copy of Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American Cities. I was several wonderful chapters in when I lost it, and only recently found it again (it was zipped away in the pocket of my suitcase). As I work through the other 4 books I’ve started, it has sat on a shelf. Even the few chapters I read expanded my understanding of what makes a great neighborhood.
But I’ve found a great reason to pick it back up: the City Builder Book Club. The Center for Urban Projects, the same group that created The Gondola Project, is starting up an online book club specifically for those of us that wish to understand cities in greater depth. And just my luck: their first book is The Death and Life of Great American Cities. If you’re a reader here I highly recommend signing up and reading along.
Two Views of M Street: the people entrance and the parking entrance
I appreciate Roger Valdez’s straight-up acknowledgement that yes, there is “social engineering” going on in American cities:
Yes, we are social engineers, but no more so thanRobert Moses and his followers, who built “free” highways and subsidized, auto-dependent single-family communities that ate up land, fuel, and energy for more than half a century. That kind of social engineering has run out of (cheap) gas. The answer is to engineer more wisely, not to return to the Wild West or mimick South American shanty towns.
Shortly after I read this article I found myself walking home past the recently-closed M Street grocery on First Hill. Though M Street was popular with the locals, it couldn’t make ends meet after the building’s owners doubled the rent on them. While doubling the rent seems extreme, keep in mind that the property’s new owners, the Ohio Teachers’ Retirement System, bought the development for $75M back in 2006. Gotta recoup that investment somehow.
The reason I bring up the M Street grocery is that urban living (and suburban living) is all about choices. The choices we make necessitate other choices. Developers on First Hill are required to provide parking (this requirement was mercifully reduced to 0.5 spaces/unit, but only after the M Street building was completed), which increases the costs of development, and thus the amount of rent that needs to be collected on the building’s tenants. Furthermore, requiring parking makes it easier for M Street’s residents to own a car, which makes it more likely that they — and their neighbors — will be able to patronize grocery stores further afield. Especially if those grocery stores, are, say, the nearby QFC or Whole Foods, both of whom offer free customer parking.
Thus, only certain kinds of businesses can afford to stay open in neighborhoods like First Hill — and apparently grocery stores are not one of them. Which is a problem, but it’s a problem that results directly from car-centric “social engineering.” We may wish to take a “ducks unlimited” approach to urban planning: “sure, give them parking spots, we’ll offer them such awesome retail that they’ll choose not to use them!” In reality, however, choices and constraints prevail. By choosing to have parking minimums, we’re directly limiting the type of retail that can exist at the ground level. Fortunately, we’re making the right choices in First Hill. What about your neighborhood?
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